The Quiggleys’ boy’s name was Bobby Lee and until he learned to cuss proper he got teased about it at school. Bobby Lee had never seen a black person up close until that woman moved into his parents’ old house with the little boy. He talked in hateful terms about the “nigger” because that was how a grown up white man talked, same as young men in the know talked about some girls: showed you knew what you were talking about. That’s what Bobby thought. Then one late afternoon just after the woman moved in and had had some fight with his mother, her cowboy son drove down from Longmont, fast in a cloud of dust and screeched to a stop in their driveway in a way Bobby couldn’t help but admire. Lance talked briefly to Mr. Quiggley and turned to go but he noticed Bobby pretending to tinker with his jeep parked next to the cowboy’s pick-up and he addressed the white boy:
“Your name is Bob isn’t it?”
“Yessir”... Bobby hadn’t meant to say “sir” to a black man but that man was the first man to call him by his own grown up name and it took him by surprise. He couldn’t take it back and anyway Lance was already telling him something important. Lance was the kind never said a word unless it was important.
“Let me tell you something, Bob. I work with a lot of boys, teachin’ ’em to ride, rope broncs, bulls, what have you. Most of my boys bin in jail and this is what they tell me...it’s kind of a joke: they tell me the white kids are afraid of the Mexicans because the Mexicans carry knives, and the Mexicans are afraid of the black guys because they all think the black guys all have guns, and everybody is afraid of the Indians because the Indians are plumb crazy. Now what it is kid is this. The Indians got nothing to lose and I gotta tell you there ain’t nothing more powerful than having nothing to lose. Know what I mean?”
Bobby didn’t really know what he meant but he nodded anyway and said it again, “yessir.” Lance got into the pick-up, backed it around with the kind of quick, masterful, one-handed steering maneuver that Bobby had been practicing with the jeep, and then he leaned out the window and let fall one more pearl. “Folks that give you hope, Bob, they don’t have to give you nothin’ else.”
The next time Bob Quiggley saw Lance close up to talk was three years later at the Greeley Stampede. Lance rode in the Will Pickett Black rodeo but he rode in all the nearby rodeos, sometimes, most times, the only black contestant. He was a bull rider, a crowd pleaser, a man who had nothing to lose. At home in Longmont he’d sometimes sit on a flat rock by the creek and let the sound of the water seep into his soul like his father’s songs had once drifted into his infant dreams. He was the youngest, not yet a year old when his dad disappeared but he was the son who still had the memories. Well, his brother was a lawyer, what could you expect? Lance did OK training and selling horses and with his winnings. He was a winner. He got respect too. He was good with tough young men and enjoyed their admiration. His mother, his brother, they’d send him kids too mean for anyone else to work with and too vulnerable to just let go into the system of institutions where they’d die on the inside just to survive on the surface. The tougher, the meaner, the lonelier, the more the challenge.
Adam went to the local rodeos with Lance. Lance was teaching him to ride broncs, bareback, the way he’d learned to ride in the very beginning. Around horses Adam was fearless. It was another thing with people. As soon as he saw his brother talking to that neighbor boy he hid in the shadows waiting and watching like he always did.
“Hey Adam, come here. This here’s yer neighbor Bob Quiggley wishing he could ride the broncs.”
“I kin,” yelled Adam smiling but not coming too close yet.
“You?” Bob figured Adam must be about 13 by now but he was such a skinny little kid. He heard it was because no one fed him until Ida got him from Social Services.
“Yeh, he rides real good. I take Adam back home with me every weekend and we ride together...surprised you hadn’t noticed the way you always watchin’ my mother’s place.”
It took no more than a second for Bob Quiggley’s face to turn completely red.
“Well, we’re stopping by mom’s for supper ’n then going back to my place. You’re welcome to follow along if you’re serious about getting up on a horse.”
Bob Quiggley went ghost white about as fast as he’d just turned beet red.
“Hey man, I’m not crazy. I won’t put you on no bucking horse right off the bat. No you gotta learn to ride ’em first. I just thought you might want to learn, start out slow, you know? I teach young fellas all the time and they all live to tell about it.”